Knowing
Director: Alex Proyas
Nicholas Cage never seems to turn down anything, especially if it has a sci-fi or fantasy angle, but he at least has a talent for finding profitable and moderately diverting films, as the National Treasure series has amply verified.
It’s much the same with Knowing, a Biblical doomsday thriller that did improbably good box office back in the spring, despite recycling the plots of about a dozen such apocalyptic pictures.
A 1959 prologue sets the clock ticking on an ominous set of predictions. Asked to contribute to a time capsule, a weird kid in a Boston-district school submits a list of numbers that apparently mean nothing, unless you watch a lot of spooky movies. Too bad the dog didn’t eat her homework.
Flash forward to 2009, and the son (Chandler Canterbury) of MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler (Cage) finds the numbers and shows his dad, a skeptic by training and an atheist by conviction (he blames God for his wife’s death).
Much to his shock and awe, John discovers the figures have added up to reveal not just tragedies of the past half century (9/11 among them), but more to come — including (insert drum roll) the end of the world. Can he do anything about it? At least he has a beautiful accomplice (Rose Byrne) to go crazy with.
Knowing works best for people who know their Bible and who have a high tolerance for cheesy special effects.
Good for a cottage video rental — and isn’t that worth Knowing?
